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29. For the regulation of the Book and Tract department, particular rules shall be framed and submitted by the first year's Committee to the next General Meeting for its approval; which rules shall provide on what recommendation and on what sanction and vote Books and Tracts shall be published or provided by the Association-on what terms and in what mode they shall be supplied to District Associations and individual members-in what manner they shall be printed-and to what extent gratuitously circulated. 30. The Committee shall have power to appoint and admit Honorary Memhers, in their discretion.

31. All Subscriptions shall be paid in advance and considered as falling due on the first day of January in every year.

32. No addition to or alteration in the Rules of the Association shall be made, except at a General Meeting, and after notice of the intended motion to the Committee at one of its meetings preceding.

At the Annual General Meetings of the UNITARIAN FUND and the UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, it was agreed henceforth to unite those Societies to the above ASSOCIATION.

Treasurer,

JOHN CHRISTIE, Esq., 52, Mark Lane.
Deputy Treasurer,

THOMAS HORNBY, Esq., 31, St. Swithin's Lane, Lombard Street.

Secretary,

Rev. ROBERT ASPLAND, Hackney.

Foreign Secretary,

Rev. W. J. FOX, Dalston.

Solicitor,

EDGAR TAYLOR, Esq., King's Bench Walk, Temple.

Committee,

Rev. JAMES GILCHRIST,

Rev. THOMAS MADGE,

Rev. Dr. T. REES,

Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH,

Messrs. J. BOWRING,

J. CORDELL,

DAVID EATON,

JOSEPH FERNIE,

Messrs. T. GIBSON,

Auditors,

S. HART,

C. RICHMOND,

J. T. RUTT,

G. SMALLFIELD,
EDWARD TAYLOR,
RICHARD TAYLOR.

Messrs. R. SURRIDGE, JAMES YOUNG, JOHN WATSON.

It is of course very desirable, that the different country Societies and Congregations should, as early as possible, communicate their intentions as to uniting themselves to the Association, and as to the amount of their yearly contributions, and that individuals should in the same manner state the amount at which they wish their subscriptions to stand.

Printed by G. Smallfield, Hackney.

THE

UNITARIAN FUND REGISTER.

No. VII.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE UNITARIAN FUND, Read at THE ANNUAL Meeting, May 25, 1825;

J. T. RUTT, Esq., in the Chair.

ANTICIPATING the introduction of important business for the consideration of this Meeting, it is the wish of your Committee to present the Report of their proceedings, during the past year, in as brief a form as is consistent with the duty of rendering a faithful account of their trust.

The topics to which they would call your attention are, 1st. the state of Unitarian Christianity in India; 2d, the assistance which has been rendered to Congregations and Missionaries in our own country; and, 3rd, the projected general Union of Unitarian Societies.

The last Number of the Unitarian Fund Register contained a letter from W. Roberts, of Madras, dated July 5, 1824. Another communication has since arrived, dated 15th October last. The following are extracts:

"Our congregation wholly consists of this humble cast, well known by the name of Pariar, or Pariah: most of the men are gentlemen's servants, such as butlers, cooks, butler's mates, cook's mates: three of them are drummers in the service of the Nabob, one is a Lascar in the Company's service, one is a conocopally, three are schoolmasters, one is our catechist; their earnings are from five to fifteen rupees a month. The women in general manage their home affairs, and take care of their children. Most of the men, and some women, can read; several of them have purchased Bibles for themselves; others are furnished with this blessing from those which we receive from the Bible Society; they send their children to school, both boys and girls: the girls chiefly to learn to read, and the boys to read and write. Those families who live very far from our own schools, send their children to the nearest Missionaries' schools that will admit Unitarian children. The boys, when grown up, generally go to be servants like their fathers.

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In our Hanicollam school, at present, there are four girls and twelve boys. Two of the former and six of the latter are Unitarian children, the rest are Catholics and Heathens. In our Pursewaukum school there are eight girls and four boys: four of the former and the four latter are Unitarian children, the rest Catholics and Heathens. Our school-books are spelling-books, composed on purpose for the use of our schools, and copied on cadjan leaves, containing words of two letters to words of nine letters; most of our letters are syllables of two or three letters. After the spelling-book, catechism, hymns, arithmetic, collection of Scripture texts, containing the principal doctrines and duties of religion, Scriptures beginning from Moses, corruptions of Christianity and refutation of Heathenism, in verse and prose-these are our school-books; but most of the parents, being poor, and not able to let their children remain long enough to go through them, they take them away often after they have learned the catechism, and arithmetic enough to cast up common accounts.

"My friend Lazarus Handiapah had a school at Pallararam, on the west

of St. Thomas's Mount: he built the school, and paid the schoolmaster himself. I supplied the books. But necessity made him go as a mess butler in the late expedition, and he is now at Rangoon; that school is given up through want to pay the schoolmaster.

My friend Abraham Chinniah, at Secandrabad, has applied repeatedly for a Unitarian schoolmaster, to set up a school there and be as a companion with him among his friends and hearers, which he thinks will be of service to further our view of the gospel; but at present I am not able to pay for such a person; it will cost at least 12 rupees a month.

"On reading one of my letters in the Christian Reformer, Vol. VII. the first two paragraphs in p. 399, I was not a little troubled for having formed too good opinion of my countrymen, in respect to true religion easily making its way among them. Three years' further and better experience, however, shews that superstitious, erroneous opinions, and inattention of my countrymen are not so easily conquered as I then imagined. Though the printing of our books, in our own language, has much confirmed my brethren in their faith and strengthened our cause, and some of those Trinitarians and Heathens that choose to hear us read, and read our books, do confess that Unitarianism is more agreeable to reason and scripture than any other system of religion, yet to profess it openly they venture not. Of all the country-born people that have perused English Unitarian books, not one has yet ventured to declare openly in its favour. Eight years back our number were ten families, our present number not a few more than twenty families, and these also live dispersedly; it does not, as a society, make much impression upon others; the low circumstances and mean appearance of my person, and the poverty of my brethren also, are not small disadvantages to the spreading of truth. "In this state of things our friends and promoters of Unitarian Christianity may consider us as only keeping our cause alive than making much progress; and afford us to pay a few teachers to go out to preach our view of the Gospel, and print one, two or three small tracts yearly, to feed the light to make it burn brighter. Above all, in behalf of us and our much debased countrymen, we earnestly entreat, through your means, all Unitarian and Christian Ministers and people to unite their god-like zeal, love and charity together, to bless Madras also with Unitarian Missionaries, and specially with one, if possible, before I am no more. May God, the Creator and Preserver of all, move, direct and bless all his servants in our favour, that our light and consolation may continue, strengthened by their kind attention !"

The increase from ten to twenty families, although spoken of by William Roberts in a tone of disappointment, is perhaps quite as large as could, under all the circumstances, have been reasonably anticipated. No prospect of temporal advantage can have operated on those who have been converted through his instrumentality. And if the number should appear, at first, inconsiderable, yet when it is remembered that his church consists of sixtysix native adults, (besides fifty-seven children,) of whom thirty-five were idolaters, while the aggregate result of all the Trinitarian Protestant Missions to India, after thirty years of zealous exertion, employing Missionaries (Native and European) by scores, with an expenditure of thousands of pounds per annum, and possessing establishments, holding out great allurements to the poorer classes, is by themselves stated as less than 500 Native professors, and estimated, by Mr. Adam, as not exceeding 300; your Committee cannot but regard it as a decisive evidence of the superior adaptation of Unitarian Christianity for the purpose of conversion from Idolatry. The Bengal Missionary Register of Baptisms commences in 1795,—and it is only at the close of 1807, the 12th year, that it exhibits a list of Native professors of Christianity equal in number to that received last year from William Roberts. So little has been the effect of the imposing and costly machinery

The descendants of Europeans born in India.

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of Trinitarian Missions, in comparison with that of the almost unaided efforts of an humble individual for the promotion of the genuine Gospel.

When to this is added, the probable good effect of the schools connected with the Church of Pursewaukum, and of the Tracts published by William Roberts, and which have been circulated, not only in the immediate vicinity of Madras, but up the country as far as Bangalore and Hyderabad, the Committee feel assured, that the Subscribers to this object have ample encouragement for continuing their assistance.

As a statement of the information possessed, and the wishes entertained by your Committee, in relation to the Unitarian Cause at Calcutta, they beg to lay before you the following circular, which they have recently addressed to the Ministers of our Denomination, and which was accompanied, to each, by a copy of the "Correspondence relative to the Prospects of Christianity, and the Means of promoting its Reception in India,” which has been reprinted from the American edition.

"REVEREND Sir,

"By direction of the Unitarian Fund Committee, I take the liberty of soliciting your attention to the accompanying publication on the Prospects of Unitarian Christianity, and the Means of promoting its Reception, in British India.

"For several months a subscription has been open, in this country, towards the erection of a Chapel at Calcutta; but, independently of a grant from the Unitarian Fund of 1007., and an individual donation of 2007., the present amount of that subscription is only about 500/., being considerably less than one-half the sum which has been raised by the friends and supporters of the Rev. W. Adam, in Calcutta and its neighbourhood. It was, and still is, the hope of the Committee, that they should be enabled, as soon as it appeared that the proposed building was in progress, to transmit not less than a Thousand Pounds towards its completion; and it is obviously desirable that, unless the design be relinquished, they should be able to pledge themselves to that effect as soon as possible.

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By recent accounts, however, it appears that something more will be necessary than the erection of a Chapel, if Mr. Adam's services, as an Unitarian Preacher in India, be continued. That gentleman's support, during the three years which have elapsed since his separation from the Trinitarian Baptist Mission, has been derived partly from his own exertions in tuition, &c., and partly from the contributions of the attendants on his ministry, and of others who were disposed to favour the promulgation of the doctrines which he taught. The former of these sources has been gradually narrowed by the prejudices which have been excited against Mr. Adam's theological opinions, nor can he, in future, avail himself of it to any extent without engaging in occupations which would leave him no adequate time for Missionary or Ministerial duties. From the latter source Mr. Adam derives an income of 150 Sicca Rupees per mensem, or about 1807. per annum. Of this amount, only 100 Sicca Rupees per mensem, or 1207. per annum, can be permanently relied upon.

"Under these circumstances, and finding it impossible to combine the active pursuit of the object which is nearest his heart with any avocation of sufficient emolument to provide for his family, Mr. Adam has come to the determination (in which the Committee think him fully justified) of relinquishing his charge, and quitting India, unless he shall receive early assurances of such support as will enable him to apply himself to the great work of planting genuine Christianity in the East, uninterrupted by those harassing anxieties to which he has been subjected during the last three years. Mr. Adam has communicated this determination, at the same time, to the Unitarians of America, from whom he has already received some assistance, and to the Secretary of the Unitarian Fund. The sum required is 1207. per annum from America, and the same amount from this country, making,

together with the Subscriptions of his Congregation, a total of 360%. per annum, an income which, with economical management, is not at all more than adequate to the decent maintenance of Mr. Adam and his family, at Calcutta, as the Committee is assured by gentlemen well acquainted with that place.

"It now devolves, therefore, upon the Unitarians of Great Britain, to decide between the effective support and the total abandonment of their cause in the metropolis of British India.

"The result of extensive inquiry and repeated investigation, on the part of the Unitarian Fund Committee, has been a firm conviction that Mr. Adam ought to be enabled to continue his Missionary labours in that country. An immediate accession of numerous proselytes is not to be anticipated, but the present time seems eminently adapted for making a favourable and extensive impression upon the minds of the intelligent natives. The Church Establishment is yet in the weakness of infancy. The very trifling success of the various Trinitarian Missions, supported at an enormous expense, may rather be termed a failure. The doctrine of the Trinity is continually urged, both by Hindoos and Mahometans, as a fatal objection to Christianity. Conversions from Hindooism to Mahometanism, occasioned by the superiority of the latter over idolatry, are not uncommon. A species of Hindoo Unitarianism, founded upon the Veds, prevails to a considerable extent. The Trinitarian Missionaries, of both the Independent and Baptist denominations, have complained of the objections made to the doctrine of the Trinity by their own proselytes. Theological controversy, in which learned natives have taken an active part, has been excited. The able and interesting defences of Unitarian Christianity, by that illustrious convert, Rammohun Roy, are in circulation; and very great and persevering efforts are made for extending the advantages of education.

"Mr. Adam is well fitted to take advantage of these propitious circumstances. His letters and publications evince him to be a man of considerable talents and attainments. His piety and moral character are unimpeachable. Of his zeal and disinterestedness it may be proper to mention one instance, viz. that he has already sacrificed, to the desire of remaining at his important post, nearly half the sum (of 3007.) to which he became entitled, on dissolving his connexion with the Baptist Missionaries, in consequence of his previous subscriptions to a kind of benefit society existing amongst them. Rammohun Roy bears testimony to his thorough acquaintance with the language, manners and prejudices, of the natives,' and to his having already received every countenance from several respectable European gentlemen, and from a great number of the reading part of the native community in Calcutta.❜ (See Correspondence, pp. 133, 136.)

"The fact that, notwithstanding the combination of disadvantages with which Mr. Adam has had to struggle, 1200/. have been raised towards the erection of an Unitarian Chapel, and 100%. per annum towards the support of the minister; and that, by persons unaccustomed to individual expense for religious instruction; must be regarded (however inadequate the amount to the accomplishment of those objects) as a proof of the past, and an encouraging earnest of the future, success of his labours in that neighbourhood. The circumstances already noticed indicate a far more extensive field of usefulness to which, should the arrangement now proposed be adopted, he may direct his attention. Almost every letter which has, of late, been received from William Roberts, of Madras, adverts to the essential service which would be rendered to the Unitarian cause there, by the presence of an European Missionary, and contains an earnest prayer that one may be sent. The advantage of an occasional visit from Mr. Adam might be conferred, in the event of his not quitting India, at no very great expense; but his removal would scarcely leave the remotest probability of our being able to employ an agency which at any time would be of great utility, and which, in case of the death of William Roberts, might be absolutely necessary

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